In the middle of tragedy, we can often throw our hands up and send God packing—but the real miracles happen when we cling to Him tighter with the assurance that He is with us. Remember that His purpose and plans are much greater when you have the faith to follow Him regardless of your circumstances.

QUESTIONS WE TOUCH ON IN THIS EPISODE:

• How does faith grow?
• Why is faith important?
• What can faith do?

VERSES FROM THE FAITH TO FOLLOW

Hebrews 11:1, Ruth 1:16, Romans 8:28, Isaiah 66:9, Luke 1:37, Ruth 2:14, Proverbs 3:6

QUOTES FROM THE FAITH TO FOLLOW

“She’s really convinced she has nothing to offer and focused a lot on what she could offer. And I think it’s crazy. She didn’t notice or realize, you know, she has God and she never tossed him aside, but she has God and she didn’t think that’s what she could offer them”                                                                                                                                

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast S01E01: The Faith to Follow

“It’s kind of neat how God blesses us no matter where we’re at. When we trust in him.” 

“So we were thinking about faith today. Hebrews 11:1 and I liked this verse. It says “now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. Wow. It’s the assurance of things hoped for.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast S01E01: The Faith to Follow

“He knows what we need. We don’t know. So we might think we need stuff, we don’t, but he knows what we need and he makes sure we get that, not just what we need but what we need plus what we need so that we overflow and so that we eat all we want”.

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast S01E01: The Faith to Follow

Annotated Transcript

Michelle: This is episode one, the official first episode where we had to study for it.

Shea: I mean it’s always good to study the word of God.

Michelle: Nobody wants a heretic.

Shea: No.

Michelle: Or false prophet. Hi, everyone, I’m your friendly, neighborhood false prophet. Here to misguide you.

Shea: No, no, if anything, I think that we would like to sit and talk about things of the Bible. Things of the word. Things of the Lord. I mean there’s so many different thoughts or angles that we come across. That we question sometimes like am I thinking right? I mean just today we’re talking about faith, believe it or not, this is what our podcast is about, faith.

Michelle: Faith, works, and community.

Shea: Right? And then today we’re going to be talking about faith…

Michelle: …to follow.

Shea: Yes. *laughs*

Michelle: *Laughs* I was like, topic or title? Yes.

Shea: We’re going to talk about faith. What’s the right amount of faith? What’s not the right amount of faith? Is my faith genuine? Is my faith not genuine?

Michelle: Is it big enough? Right? Am I limiting it? Am I limiting God? Am I misguided? 

Shea: God lines things up to subjects that you’re eventually going to talk about. Um, and welcome to the pantry by the way.

Michelle: Oh yeah. I know. We like to just run and gun, but this is how you know that it’s getting real for me. Oh yeah. That’s the sparkling water with flavor. Yes. No sugar added.

Shea: But anyways, yeah, no, we just like to talk and you know, I think that that’s why we’re here. We’re here just to give people a glimpse into our daily lives and how we talk about the word of God and how we apply it to our lives.The fact that we can come back as a husband and wife, we can come back to the table no matter what the circumstance. And we have the key, you know, we have a center point. A central point, right? And it’s Christ. And so no matter what happens, we find our way back here. So today, you know, in the pantry we have, you know, faith work, community, we wanted to just kinda start off these next three in those areas. And today we designed faith in that and that’s perfect.

Michelle: We’ll dive deeper into super specific topics after this might as well start with very basic “this is what we’re about”  kind of discussions about the three to calibrate our language/

Shea: Well there you go. I like that. So we were thinking about faith today. Hebrews 11:1 and I liked this verse. It says “now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. Wow. It’s the assurance of things hoped for. Sometimes life can really be rough. Life can drag us around and sometimes we just really could feel hopeless. Yeah, we can feel saddened or overwhelmed. 

Shea: I could go through the list of, of emotions and feelings, but the assurance, right of things hoped for. That’s faith, faith and knowing that no matter what happens, you have Christ. No matter what happens, we’re in Christ. That’s like this kingdom mentality that God is our ruler, right. Kings is, our Christ. And then we follow that as we were talking about this. We put this together when we read the Bible we read it together and I think this is our fourth year,

Michelle: Fourth year reading it through in sync. We use the YouVersion Bible app. Hey Craig Rochelle and that random youth. 

Shea: That was a choice that I made. But what’s really cool about it is that we get to come back on it in the day or you know, even a few days later and bring up something that we read or something that came out of us. And it’s amazing that as we continue to read, we’re faithful in our reading. Because I really believe that God speaks to us that way. And so we’re faithful in our reading and in that over the last four years, it’s like every time I read it, even Leviticus, something comes out and something glimmers a little bit on a different side because seasons

Michelle: You build each time, you know, you’ve gotten a little bit here, now he can speak to you on something else cause he doesn’t want to overflow you with revelations  all at once. He wants to let you marinate.

Shea: Yeah. That’s cool. Like that pantry. If you didn’t figure this out yet, somebody in this family loves the cook

Michelle: and someone loves to eat that.

Shea: And if you listen to this, you’d understand who came up with the name. He’s the cook as I speak to myself in the third person. This is our life though. And no holding back, not letting anything keep us from just being who we are and that’s why we’re here. I think that, you know, we didn’t, we put time into what we look at then we’re gonna move forward and we’re just going to share with you guys, we’re actually sitting here across from each other. It is a little weirder. 

Michelle: So we were reading the book of Ruth, I think the next three episodes, well, this episode of course is one, we’re going to cover faith and we’re going to cover works and we’re going to cover community. I came in the room, I was like, yo, that’s it. This has all of that included. It’s like a package. It happened in the right season. When we start talking about this and we started talking about getting it into a podcast.

Michelle: It’s also my, in my opinion, like the happiest book of the Bible to start out with, you know, as far as something bad happened in the very beginning. Nothing else bad happened the entire time. That’s so rare, right?

Shea: I mean, okay, hold up Naomi. He thought it was excruciating, right?

Michelle: I mean, it’s like, but they make it, it’s literally like one sentence. Then just lots of good love. 

Shea: It’s kind of neat how God blesses us no matter where we’re at. When we trust in him. Was it right for Naomi, her husband, and our two sons to leave Judah. Hmm. I don’t know, but God had a purpose and the purpose was to go all the way to Moab and pick up this young lady named Ruth, get her involved, get her kind of marinating in this idea of the word of God, and then use that. And so, you know, they, go over there, it’s a famine. You know, they go to Moab, the husband dies right away. That’s where I’m saying Naomi, poor thing. She’s got her two sons sometimes, you know, those worldly things kind of hold us together, you know, in our own thoughts and some thoughts. It’s like, well, I lost my husband, but I got my daughter, right. And then they married. Oh wow. Imagine that. Oh, they got wise. You know, they’re moabites, but Hey, it’s okay. They love them. They’re together. They’re together 10 years and then they die.

Michelle: Yeah.

Shea: Naomi, has probably some bitterness at this point.

Michelle: Yeah, we know that. She literally tells them, don’t call me Naomi anymore. Call me Mara. And Mara means bitter whereas Naomi means pleasant. 

Shea: It’s really neat. That in those 10 years she was not a reflection necessarily of Naomi. When people see her, that’s what they see. Oh, here’s this woman when there’s a mother-in-law and you have a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-laws and the husband’s dying and Naomi is like you know what? I hear that the famine is over, I’m going home. Which makes sense. She’s bitter and she’s going to go home. What are y’all going to do? And they’re like, we’re going to go with you. And they’re like, okay, cool. And they started out, I mean, they actually started the journey, both of them. So basically Orpah and Ruth joined Naomi on this trip alone, three women.

Shea: That was not common in that time, you know, today’s age it’s normal and unquestioned. But they got on the road and Naomi has that second thought cause she’s in that bitter stage. She has nothing to offer. She’s older, she might be barren, I might not have any more sons, even if I did have sons,would you wait around or would you just find another husband? You know? And so she’s kind of releasing them. She’s giving them an out. She’s giving them a choice. Look, you know, you guys should go.

Michelle: She’s really convinced she has nothing to offer and focused a lot on what she could offer. And I think it’s crazy. She didn’t notice or realize, you know, she has God and she never tossed him aside, but she has God and she didn’t think that’s what she could offer them. You know, Moab doesn’t have God and she does. But she didn’t think, Hey, I can’t offer you sons, but I can offer you God. Instead. She was like, no, go back and get some dudes because I can’t give you any and go back to all that.

Michelle: She blesses them with God though. She says, she’s like, I made the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands. And to me. May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage. Right? Then she kisses him, says goodbye to hell. Break down, fall apart.

Shea: Which shows you like this is not a typical typical for us. We love our mother-in-laws, but you know, I mean there’s a lot of bad blood with a lot of mother laws. But they obviously hit it off. Great!

Shea: Yet they still wanted to go off this first time, but, but she’s just like, I have nothing. She really is. She’s like, I have nothing. But she had nothing but she had so much. She obviously had a lot of faith in God to bless them. She has a lot of faith in God to get her down a road as a single woman all the way back to Bethlehem of Judah. And she’s like, you know what? I don’t want to burden you guys. 

Shea: I mean, how many times in our lives, it wasn’t even, we’re like, “Oh, we’re losing you, so don’t burden you, I’m so horrible, oh, I can’t believe you even put up with me”. If you’re in a relationship y’all know.

Shea: We always feel inadequate. But again, we’d go back to what I said earlier, the center point, that center point of Christ, that faith in Christ, that faith, knowing that he is always there, that faith knowing he will get us through. So now he’s in this mind, I’m going to get you through, right? And of course, our focus is now me and you know, she says it again. She’s like, Oh, they’re all weeping and crying and find the opposite. You know what? I’m going back. I’m going to go back to them. You’ve convinced you’ve convinced me.

Shea: BUT Ruth, you know, and that’s like life too. We have a choice and some will say yes and some will say no. And what’s amazing here is this next verse, and I love this verse. It’s Ruth 1:16 through 18 right? It describes exactly how reflective Naomi was of the Lord.

Shea: Ruth was not blind to something greater. Going back to Moab at this point was far worse than any travel or any circumstance I mean they have nothing. If you know the story, they’re really rolling with nothing, but they’re trusting in God to get him there. Ruth comes back again, she says, don’t ask me to leave you and turn back wherever you go. I will go wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die and there. I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us. When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. What a statement of faith.

Shea: Naomi was a reflection of God. And obviously in the 10 years, Naomi probably bowed down, prayed to God, I’m just saying 10 years. Come on. You’re going to see stuff enough to know if you’re going to commit to her God or not. 

Shea: I’ve moved into Michelle’s childhood home. Michelle’s mom lives with us. I’ve seen stuff. It’s only been a couple of years. I know her mother’s heart, it’s, it’s amazing. She loves the Lord. And this is what Ruth saw. Naomi was this love and this trust. Yeah, she went through her moment. But let me tell you from this chapter, it’s like it’s a change. We’re in this, we’re in this with the Lord, we’re in this together.

Michelle: They’re walking in a purpose. And this section shows how easy it is when just the world’s just throwing you down. That we forget things. 

Michelle: There’s a verse that I love. Isaiah 66:9 He says, “I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord”. That and Romans 8:28 are such life-giving verses in the pit when you are questioning everything. The reasoning, what did I do? What am I gonna do? You know? And despite being bitter, she’s totally willing to go back. She never cast God out. She actually draws near to him like Bethlehem, you know.

Michelle: So they left the House of Bread and went to this crazy place where human sacrifices are the norm. Now she’s going back to the House of Bread. At her darkest moment, you see her struggling. And in her overall faith of what she has to offer, she forgets that she can offer God, right? So there’s this showing of peer pressure, group think, the culture and you see one person bite into that and leave.

Michelle: Yet it’s still this amazing reminder that even in the darkness you’ve got to go back to God because the rest of the story shows what happens when you do. The rest of the story shows that there is pain that he’s allowed or caused. He is gonna do a new thing, right? And that is what faith is. Having faith that he will always, no matter what you’re in, do a new thing with that infinite knowledge, he will take care of you and have the right avenue for you to travel.

Michelle: That’s exactly what two-thirds of the women did. That’s such a valuable lesson for us to cling to. It wasn’t just, Oh, you know, she was so faithful to Naomi, but actually, although the books called Ruth and a lot of it’s Ruth, Naomi’s huge in lessons of faith. Just like you said, being the reflection, that’s what your faith can do –bring someone else to faith. You know, she brought Ruth to where Ruth would be and brought Ruth to a place where she would have a book of the Bible named after her, which she would never know. You don’t know the ripples. 

Shea: We got more episodes, but I’m just saying the lineage. Bethlehem of Judah. I mean the house of bread,  there’s some other famous people that came from Bethlehem. I don’t know if calling Jesus famous. Is that okay? I mean, to me, he’s my rock star! Hey, call it what it is. Because why? I have that faith to follow. 

Shea: I know it’s hard sometimes for people to dial that in, right? Cause I mean we get overwhelmed, but you know, sometimes we just have to remember that nothing will be impossible with God. And that’s in Luke 1:37 it’s not impossible. It’s not impossible. When you can get through the idea that it’s impossible that you know you and your mind says it’s impossible and you say no, no, no, no, no, no, no it’s impossible. Hey, Romans 8:28 and Isaiah 66:9 Nothing is impossible. And that’s where we align our hearts. That’s where we align our minds and our hearts. And we really, really, really dig into that bread and use that as the sustenance. 

Shea: You know, that’s kind of our idea behind the pantry. You know, making sure that what’s in our pantry is healthy, cause spiritual healthiness and hey look, physical, healthiness, whatever’s in your pantry is what you’re going to be. If I put a lot of junk food in my pantry, my health might not be all that.

Michelle: Cause you really are what you eat, on a spiritual level.

Shea: Yeah, that’s even deeper. What’s in there? Am I allowing things, you know, doubt?You know, doubt is the opposite, saying God can’t handle it. It’s me taking the power and glory away from God and putting it into my own hands. Right. And that’s not where I want it to be. Ever.

Michelle: Please let God stock my pantry cause then it’s gonna just be full up though. Best of everything. You know, it’s summed up the fruit of faith, right? The faith to follow when you know everything seems so glum and it’s actually in Ruth 2:14 and she’s sitting with as eating. But this line, when I read it, it just resonated so deep. It said she ate all she wanted and still had some leftover. That’s not just that physical, but that is what happens when we follow him in faith because you have no idea what he’s going to give you. But he’s this God of provision and he gives us what we need. 

Michelle: He knows what we need. We don’t know. So we might think we need stuff, we don’t, but he knows what we need and he makes sure we get that, not just what we need but what we need plus what we need so that we overflow and so that we eat all we want. They’re still left over for others. And I was like, that is what faith is all about. It doesn’t just stop with us. Like if I have faith, I get stuff. It’s that when I have faith, this is, this verse actually goes back to Naomi. Naomi had her faith to get her through, to make the decision to go to Bethlehem, but she had extra that overflowed and brought Ruth with her. And that’s, that’s where it goes. It’s like, it’s not just about us.

Shea: I think at that moment, in that moment when Naomi heard that what Ruth said to her about, I’ll follow you. I’ll follow your people. I’ll follow your Lord. And she was silent.

Shea: Because she was awakened in that moment too. You know what? It’s deeper than just me. So if I’m gonna leave y’all with something, if I’m going to leave us with something to think about in our own home, I like Proverbs 3:6 and I’m going to close it with this, seek his will in all you do. And he will show you which path to take the faith to follow. Just trust in him, even in the darkest moments of your life. Open the word of God. Even if it’s hard for you to genuinely like it, read his word, talk to him and tell him. Hey, it’s in your hands. You can do this. Amen.

Michelle: Amen. We’d love to hear what you guys think. Go to thepantrypodcast.com and tell us what, what you’re thinking, what you want us to pray with you about, any, any questions you have, any comments, we’ll definitely start integrating those throughout in unexpected ways. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Yeah, this is The Pantry.

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